My Account of Hudson Valley UFO

My girlfriend and I are walking my dog at North Garnerville Elementary School. It’s about 9 pm.

The dog worked its way along a fence bordering the southern end of the school’s massive property and just as we reached the bottom of the hill I looked up and to my left and notice a large object heading south at low altitude.

The green fields under the “33” in the map indicate the location of the sighting. This might be the most western appearance during the 1982-86 run.

The object featured rows of lights at what appeared to be its head and way in the back a small red light blinked on what looked like a standard aircraft tail. The gap between the bright lights at the head and the blinking light in the rear appeared as a black hole. The lights indicated the presence of a fuselage, but it remained invisible in the night sky.

The craft emitted no sound and hovered directly above the school at an estimated height of about 2,000 feet.

We walked down the hill to the right of the school, parallel to the fence.

I’ve always been a bit of an aircraft geek and consider myself fairly knowledgeable about commercial and military aircraft. As the object hung, soundless and motionless in the sky, my first thought led me to consider it as a massive blimp. However, a blimp’s fans are often loud and hovering in place would’ve required a steady pilot hand.

At this stage, my girlfriend and I took a seat on the hill and watched.

After a few minutes of hovering, a bright white light — a spot of light seemingly from a single source, but not a beam — appeared in the blank section behind the main row of lights at the head and the red light at the tail.

The little light dropped slowly, steadily downward in a stiff, diagonal manner. I would liken the effect to being more like a light at the end of a telescopic pole. The light lowered until it stood about 100-150 feet below the darkened fuselage. And it remained there for what felt like a long time — perhaps 10-15 minutes.

After a while, the light reeled slowly back into the side of the craft and disappeared. And the craft slowly, but steadily executed a 180-degree turn ON ITS AXIS.

At this point, we considered the show to be over, so we collected the dog and started to walk back up the hill. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the craft. Near the top of the hill, I noticed the craft moving north at a speed of about 120 knots — landing approach speed for a normal commercial aircraft. But from my current point of view, I could see that the craft was indeed massive with a wing span probably double of a 747.

We ran home and called the police to see if anyone else had seen the object. The officer indicated thousands of people responded, including reports from across the Hudson River. The Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant sat about 2 to 2.5 miles northeast across the Hudson. The policeman mentioned that it might be a hoax perpetrated by a team of kit airplanes with lanterns.

Obviously, kit airplanes make a racket, they wouldn’t be able to fly in such a tight formation and they can’t hover for more than 30 minutes.

The next day the local newspaper printed a small article in the middle of the section quoting a military spokesman as saying it was a hoax.

I do not buy the hoax. The fact that these sightings took place in the area from 1982-86 with many credible witnesses means that it’s more than just a hoax.

What was this object?

Do I believe it originated from outer space? No.

I also don’t believe it visited us from the future or some extra dimension; two additional possibilities UFO researchers rarely discuss.

Do I think it was some sort of military test craft? Possibly, but we’ve never seen anything revealed about a craft with these kinds of characteristics 31 years later.

The one thing that makes me think it’s of human origin is the red navigation light at the back.

Here’s a great example of what we witnessed that night.

This map indicates the area of sightings during “the flap” as UFOlogists call such events.

As you can see, over the course of four years, these objects — and some took on different shapes from the examples I provide — drew witnesses from police and security officers. The object hovered over the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant on two separate occasions.